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Roundup 3/1: Hearing Aid Edition

Phil Jones and the University of East Anglia mostly emerged unscathed in fairly aggressive testimony before a House of Commons committee on the ClimateGate issue today. (See live-twitter coverage by ScienceInsider.) Other witnesses included outside critics of the embattled scientist and a former British Information Commissioner, who declared that the university's actions would have warranted investigation if the 6-month limit for prosecutions hadn't passed. The U.K.'s top science adviser and two top British climate scientists also testified on the underlying climate science, declaring there was nothing in the exposed e-mails at the heart of the controversy that would undermine bedrock climate science.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who's kicking off the ARPA-E conference tomorrow, is testifying the following day before the House of Representatives science committee on the Department of Energy budget. Meanwhile, the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee meets this week.

On Wednesday NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco will testify on her agency's budget.

Reforming so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education for children is the subject of a House Hearing Thursday.

Expect to see patent reform moving again soon in Senate. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says that he and the other main players have worked out a bipartisan agreement to move forward on a compromise reform bill, to be introduced shortly as a "manager's amendment" to patent reform bill S515. Today the effort won praise from one industry lobby group, the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform.